Ehele is the cacao mead batch that I stashed with my neighbour. I figured it was time to see how that was going and collected it. Easy to remember why I decided not to use more 10l bottles - they're bloody heavy and a pain to clean, because they don't fit in the sink.
Ehle
Alc 12.5%
SG 1000
Doesn't smell bad, though surprisingly faint for something that's a ton of honey and a fair amount of cacao. Taste is similarly light, which was good (I guess) because it's sour and ergh.
It's murkey but considering how brown it started out it's cleared significantly. The fat was drifting on top (looked gross) but is mostly out after racking.
Added 500gr honey, which is not stirred in and sitting as a layer on the bottom now. Not sure if that was a good idea. I intended to backsweeten but it might restart the fermentation instead.
Was feeling a little hopeless about it until I remembered that the recipe says to let it age for at least a year after the fermentation stopped, so maybe I'm just being impatient.
Impatience and discouragement is a bit of a theme at the moment with my brewing activities. I'm not getting the results I want and I'm not sure if the current batches might improve with age or if I should just chuck them already. With the meads I know to expect them not to taste now and that they might improve dramatically with time, but the fruit wines I was expecting to be palatable by now.
If I had the space I would just wait it out, bottle it and see what it's like in a year or so. As it is I'm not much inclined to bottle stuff that's likely just going down the drain in a year's time.
Anyone have any uplifting tales about stuff that started out as dreck and turned great? I'm not expecting instant miracles here, but it'd be nice to have some optimism that all this stuff actually pays off by becoming drinkable.
Showing posts with label halp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label halp. Show all posts
Ohshi-
Unhappy moment today as a loud POP! was heard from the wooden chest where the bottles live, and pink wine started to pour over the floor. One of the bottles of Caelan had spat out its cork and emptied out. Damn! Besides it being a shame to lose 0.75l of what promised to become very nice mead, I am now also worried about the rest of the batch. I transferred the other bottles to the fridge to cool down until I know what to do, but that isn't going to work long term.
The batch was completely stable for 2 or 3 weeks, then has Kalium Sorbate added, left for another week, showed no signs of life in any way, and was then bottled. Drake got the same treatment.
I have no cool space to store the bottles. I live in a shared apartment so there just isn't space. They're at room temp - which is reasonably warm at the moment as it's warm outside. (odd though that it spat now, and not a few days ago when it was way warmer. Good though as I was on holiday and wouldn't have found it until days later)
What do I do? Open them all up? Add more Kalium Sorbate? The cork that got spat was pretty crappy, I wonder if that may have contributed. Anyway, halp!
The batch was completely stable for 2 or 3 weeks, then has Kalium Sorbate added, left for another week, showed no signs of life in any way, and was then bottled. Drake got the same treatment.
I have no cool space to store the bottles. I live in a shared apartment so there just isn't space. They're at room temp - which is reasonably warm at the moment as it's warm outside. (odd though that it spat now, and not a few days ago when it was way warmer. Good though as I was on holiday and wouldn't have found it until days later)
What do I do? Open them all up? Add more Kalium Sorbate? The cork that got spat was pretty crappy, I wonder if that may have contributed. Anyway, halp!
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